EVEN WITH ENDLESS WARS, VETERANS ARE BECOMING RARE IN U.S.: Something important to think about today. There are fewer of them, but what they do for all of us is as vital now as ever.

WHEN DO AMERICANS SAY ‘IT ISN’T RIGHT’ TO SPY ON CAMPAIGNS? Interesting question, posed by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) earlier today on CBS “Face the Nation.”

10 REMINDERS OF AMERICAN BRAVERY AND COURAGE: Here is a fascinating Memorial Day weekend selection of illustrations, beginning with George Washington’s Revolutionary War camp kit to Hanoi Hilton pajamas from the Vietnam era and Texas hero Sam Houston’s Bowie Knife.

There’s also a sequence of videos that should stir the heart of every patriot. As LifeZette’s Kyle Becker explains: “They invite us to understand what went into the creation — and the defense — of our country over the years.” And much more.

TRUMP TO SEEK MORE TAX CUTS: Hey, if a first helping was good, just think how much better a second one could be! LifeZette’s Connor Wolf has the details.

DEPORTATIONS OF ILLEGALS AREN’T KEEPING UP WITH ARRESTS: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are arresting more illegal immigrants but deportations of those previously arrested and processed through the legal system are lagging big-time. That’s according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby reports there is more to this story than the numbers.

FEEL LUCKY TODAY? BOY, DO THE CLINTONS HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU! Got a spare $100K lying around? Buy tickets to Thursday’s Clinton Foundation Gala. Sure, it won’t buy you influence in a future Clinton presidency, but, not to worry because, hey, Bill and Hillary are never without new angles to monetize their public “service.”

On the other hand, over at LifeZette, Charles Ortel lays out the other side to keep in mind with any gamble on the Clintons, including the prospect of being fitted with an orange jump suit. Trust me, folks, that’s not a long shot.

RELAX, PARENTS — SCHOOL IS A SAFE PLACE FOR YOU KIDS, STILL: Contrary to the MSM’s constant barrage suggesting there is an absolute epidemic of school shootings, LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby reports that data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) shows kids are far more at risk of dying from things like piercings, residential fires and pedal cycles.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!: No, Reagan historian and consumate political public relations adviser Craig Shirley isn’t talking about that mediocre 1966 movie of the same name. Shirley, writing in LifeZette today, is referring to the growing scandal in 2018 surrounding the FBI, Stef Halper and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.

FOOD STAMP DOUBLE DIPPERS COST MILLION$ ANNUALLY: Problems for the embattled farm bill just keep getting more complicated. LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby reports.

THESE 29 GOP SENATORS VOTED AGAINST BALANCED BUDGET PROPOSAL: The proposal was Sen. Rand Paul’s “Penny Plan” to balance the federal budget by 2023 via one percent annual spending cuts, with only Social Security exempted. Twenty GOP senators voted for it, 29 GOPers voted against, as did all of the Senate’s Democrats.

“The bottom line is whether the debt is threatening our national security, whether it’s threatening the security and the economic foundation of our country, and I think without question it is,” Paul told his colleagues on the Senate floor.

“This vote is a litmus test for conservatives. Are you a conservative? Do you think we can cut one penny out of every dollar? I think it is a conservative notion that we have long said we are for. Now it’s time to step up to the plate and actually vote what you say you stand for,” Paul continued. LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby took names, but it will be voters who will kick GOP you-know-whats.

GOP HELPS DEMS KILL CONSERVATIVE FARM BILL REFORMS: The farm bill supported by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was defeated on the House floor earlier this morning and he is now trying to bring it up for a second vote.

But the essential fact about this bill was reported yesterday by LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby – Establishment Republicans joined with Democrats Thursday to defeat much-needed reforms to the Food Stamp program in the bill. This is the kind of thing that produces grassroots revolts that made Trump’s 2016 victory, if not quite inevitable, certainly predictable.

FAKE CHARITY CLINTON FOUNDATION IS THE NEST EGG BUILT FOR CHELSEA: Let us count the ways Bill and Hillary have abused philanthropy law and regulation to create and control a billion-dollar family slush fund that’s tax-exempt and seemingly immune from accountability. And who knew Charles Ortel is a Dire Straits fan!

SARAH SANDERS DESERVES A MEDAL: For two things — Daily hand-to-hand combat with a half-dozen or more liberal ideologues masquerading as journalists in the White House Press Corps and, as LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst lucidly reports, insisting on cold, hard facts about, for example, what the animals AKA MS-13 routinely do to their victims.

WILL NEW YORK’S NEW AG GIVE THE CLINTONS ANOTHER MULLIGAN? Nearly two dozen May 15ths have passed since the Clinton Foundation was created in 1997 and New York donors have been solicited ever since. Tuesday was the latest deadline for the Clinton Foundation to comply with the Empire State’s laws and regulations for charities.

Neither departed NY AG Eric Schneiderman nor any of his predecessors — including Eliot Spitzer and current Gov. Andrew Cuomo — did nothing to enforce those laws and regs regarding the Clinton Foundation. Among much else, the Clinton Foundation failed to disclose foreign donors despite New York’s requirement that their names and amounts be made public.

Now there are more than a dozen aspirants hoping to become the new AG. Will any of them uphold equality before the law? Charles Ortel, writing in LifeZette, and other inquiring minds want to know.

ANOTHER CLINTON SUBTERFUGE EXPOSED: Joe Schoffstall at Washington Free Beacon shines light on yet another illustration of the Clinton Way: ZFS Holdings LLC was established in 2013 with  Delaware registration to manage her income from speeches and books. The registered agent for ZFS is Corporation Trust Company, a U.S. subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Wolters Kluwer.

Why is that significant? Schoffstall notes that the agent is “an epicenter of U.S. corporate secrecy,” due in great part to the anonymity allowed registrants by Delaware.

But wait, there’s more (isn’t there always with the Clintons?): Clinton’s 2016 president campaign committee has paid ZFS nearly $150,000 since her loss: “The first transaction from the committee to ZFS was made on May 4, 2017 in the amount of $32,929.28, nearly six months after Trump had defeated Clinton. Each payment from the committee to ZFS was marked as ‘rent,'” Schoffstall reports.

“Seven additional payments were made ranging from $9,617.87 to $36,369.39. The most recent payment to ZFS, for $20,822.92, was made on March 15, filings show. The campaign has pushed $149,456.78 to ZFS Holdings since early May of last year.”

And the problem with that? Schoffstall asked campaign finance expert Cleta Mitchell:

“The only disbursements allowed for the Clinton or any other losing campaign are for winding down the campaign. So the question is whether this is really for rent or whether the payments are to this entity for other types of work for Hillary, which would be personal use if it isn’t specifically tied to the winding down of the campaign.

“Personal use is illegal under federal campaign finance law. There are a number of questions that need to be answered to ensure that the campaign is using leftover campaign funds for a legally, permissible purpose.”

NIXON HAD HIS 18-MINUTE TAPE GAP, OBAMA HAS A 10-HOUR BENGHAZI GAP: And amazingly enough, considering the legions of people on the Internet calling themselves “investigative journalists,” America still has no officially confirmed idea of what President Barack Obama was doing during the Benghazi Massacre that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevenson and three U.S. security specialists who bravely held off the inevitable for long hours.

Magoo at the Daily Gouge is asking an interesting question about all this today: “We know the MSM’s still playing cover for him, but this doesn’t explain why not even a single individual who puts truth and honesty above the continued protection of the first un-American occupant of the Oval Office has surfaced.”

Three years ago, Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen pointed to the best place to start looking — the Presidential Diarist records. And he suggested what may well be confirmed there – Obama was doing debate prep while Americans were being murdered in Benghazi. Obama advocates could end the continuing speculation today simply by telling the truth. A novel concept, to be sure, but worth a try.

A 400 PERCENT INCREASE IN STEM VISAS? Latest Pew Center analysis of the number of foreign students graduating from U.S. schools and then opting to remain here and work shows a veritable explosion, according to LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby.

THEY WOULDN’T DO THAT … WOULD THEY? Yes, they would and they are, according to former House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. The “they” here are the Department of Justice officials who Issa claims are “lying through their teeth” about their “slow-walking” responses to congressional document requests and subpoena in hopes they will be drowned by a blue wave in November.

DON’T DO BUSINESS WITH IRAN, BOLTON WARNS EURO FIRMS: Isn’t it refreshing to have a White House team that speaks directly and can be trusted to follow through on its promises and warnings?

MAKE HILLARY NEW YORK’S NEW AG? YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT? Believe it or not, Clinton loyalists in politics and media are releasing lots of trial balloons to see if the failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee can succeed the disgraced Eric Schneiderman as New York’s top law enforcement official.

After he finally stopped laughing and picked himself up off the floor, Charles Ortel explains in LifeZette why the decades of charitable fraud and abuse by the Clinton Foundation make the notion of putting Hillary Clinton in as New York Attorney General is ludicrous on its face.

CAN YOU NAME THE FIVE FEDERAL JUDGES WHO HAVE MOST THWARTED TRUMP? LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby can and he’s got the details on how each one of them made the list.

NO, THE CLINTONS ARE NOT TOO BIG TO JAIL: Remember the megabuck Wall Streeters who were “too big to fail” without putting the entire economy at risk. Well, Charles Ortel makes the case in today’s LifeZette that Bill and Hillary are not too big to jail without fears the civilized world will come crashing down.

WHICH SIDE IS JEFF SESSIONS ON, ANYWAY? Questions like that become unavoidable when Department of Justice officials who are supposed to answer to the Attorney General continue to give congressional subpoenas the middle finger.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is now warning Sessions will be held in contempt if such defiance of congressional oversight doesn’t stop. If Nunes is threatening Sessions with contempt, how long before President Donald Trump makes it a moot issue?

IF YOU’RE FROM BANGLADESH, $30K GETS YOU SMUGGLED INTO THE US VIA MEXICO: It costs more if you want to be smuggled alone instead of with a bunch of other illegals on a tractor-trailer, but being from Bangladesh, odds are you are accustomed to over-crowding. LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby reports on the swelling tide of border-crossers who are not from south of the border. You know smuggling humans into the U.S. is extremely lucrative because, as one of the Border Patrol agents tells Kirby, “every sector of the border is controlled by a particular drug cartel.”

40 QUESTIONS SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER NEEDS TO ANSWER NOW: Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert says that 40-questions routine earlier this week by the New York Times goes both ways. He’s got his own 40 questions (more than that, actually, but Congress has its own unique way of posing queries) for Mueller that the Texan conveniently posted on LifeZette to make it easy for the special counsel to find them.